"The most important goal in my life is to have some significant impact in preserving and expanding the realm of personal freedom in the life of this country.” Richard D. Obenshain

Fun With Chairman Mullins

One extremely frustrating aspect of Saturday’s Virginia Republican Convention (which I cover in considerable detail in a previous article) was the excessive amount of waiting. Typically, there is a good bit of down time, a good bit of wasted time filled with an array of speakers that do little to alleviate the boredom of the crowd.

Unfortunately, the 2013 Convention offered attendees countless hours with little to do. Between the technical difficulties associated with counting the first round ballots, coupled with the daunting prospect of another three rounds of balloting, it was inevitable that a bit of mischief would occur sooner or later. After all, even a fervently Republican crowd could only stomach so many lackluster speakers or repeated Cuccinelli campaign commercials.

At one point, in order to amuse themselves, a few of the delegates in the upper reaches of the Richmond Coliseum began to make and throw paper airplanes. This new development seemed to greatly upset Pat Mullins, chairman of the state party, who took to the stage and in a gruff voice shouted for an end to the paper airplanes, stating that that these projectiles could damage the three $50,000 screens behind him. However, perhaps given the chairman’s demeanor, unconvinced that these planes could cause much harm to anything or anyone, or simply irritated by the continued waiting, the paper began to fly from the rafters again a short while later. For those of us seated on or around the floor, we simply watched as the handful of airplanes glided and fluttered to the ground.

To poke a bit of fun at the whole situation, especially given that Chairman Mullins’ words seemed to fit the stereotypical angry old man motif exceedingly well, I couldn’t help but imagining him uttering these words while I was at the convention.